Given Poems – National Poetry Day – Adults 2023

Here is our selection of the entries for Best Poem for the Given Words competition for National Poetry Day. They all had to include the following five words: broken, reflection, disappear, path, and paint.

You can read the winning poem transmutations by Elliot Harley McKenzie and also My Mother, Deciduous by Tim Saunders, which received a Special Mention, along with the judge's comments here and the poems from the Under-16s category here.

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On Sparrows

listen for the sparrows
and the way they paint these walls
with the grey
concrete notes
of a brutalist birdsong
           functional
           basic
           sharp (around the edges)
seek enough and you might find
an echoed trace of beauty

I look among the sparrows
           into them, and
           inside their forms
a boundless universe disappears
in the layering of feathers
brown as the foot-trodden path in the grass
a subliminal reflection
           of our mass-production world
churned out, they swirl
like litter in the streets

on a grimy bench in Queenstown
           they & I
wait out the rain together
as all the passing silhouettes
           flickering
           faceless
           hurry, hurry on
but I have time
to consider the petitions
of the bright-eyed, fearless
souls that circle me
I toss their mass a broken crust of pie
           and watch them seize the manna.

Shaun Stockley
Palmerston North

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The Search

Pet lambs always disappear before they have to see us eat roast mutton
Small mercies you don't give me
Over your tracks you paint iridescent oranges purples pinks
Colours stolen from the James Webb telescope that we can't make out with the cones in our eyes

And they say you were taken
They say you ran away
They say pieces of you will wash in with the tide lobotomised and unrecognisable
Served with roast potatoes and mint sauce
And the police don't have a telescope at the first Lagrange point
They can't trace the path you went down
Just name the road you were last seen on and flash their search lights through the forest
Dredge the river

But there are broken fragments of solar systems left in your wake
The tilt on venus different where you knocked it with your muddied white nikes
I take down number plates in the park and question all the astronauts
"Do you know where the pet lambs went?"
Reaching into the pond I grasp at the space between reflections of stars
The night runs through my fingers

Emma Philips
Ararua, Northland

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Salisbury Park

The cavalcade roars past us as we stand,
grief-knotted on the path, cars red, black, paint
patched, passengers pale, stoic, chur, chur, chur bro,
heads jerk upwards, a reflection of solidarity
for a whanau broken by a baby’s death
and the horror of wailing sirens, a screaming mother
police officers asking questions
again and again,
demanding answers.

Today, after the funeral,
the tears, photos, poems, the karakia for the tiny baby,
for us, we step past the bulldogs, the thick-set men,
leather-clad, fists-balled, the women all in black,
and the Corrections officers,
to hug the bereaved, knowing we are all the same,
despite it all,

and together watch red and pink balloons disappear skywards.

Lynda Scott Araya
Kurow, North Otago

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The Asylum for Lost Words

Past the castle of nonsense dreams
In which I assemble salads from sticks
And my son keeps a grizzly bear on the back lawn
There is an asylum for lost words
And unravelled childhood memories

I follow the question marks
In fluorescent paint
Narrowed eyes and heads cocked to the side
Line the path
It’s not a safe part of town

The asylum has a day visit room
For borrowed memories
They slide in through cracks and disappear
Then condense into my schema
Escaping back into reality

There is a locked ward full of objects detached
From the syllables of their names
Each image’s reflection multiplies
And links to erroneous consonants
At least these ones know they’re broken

Meg Norris
Palmerston North

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Visage

My face’s reflection has
skipped across like a
smooth stone, to fully
arc over your retina,

filling out like a
sail under way, captained
by the luminous surface
of your eye. I

will disappear with every
eclipse, every blink and
turn away, our orbits’
intersecting path broken for

a time, and then
inspired photons will paint
me again, like Seurat,
with a Pointillism of

sparking light on the
canvas of your vision.
When you return, shining,
heavenly, that boisterous army

will rebuild that path
in waves of riotous colour,
a carnival of particles,
a quantum of love.

Chris Parsons
Ōtautahi Christchurch

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Fifty Cents To Watch Me

I’m walking for feel-good on a Disney-blue morning
just broken in this new pair of Nikes when
there’s a boy swivel-dancing his bike at me

fifty cents to watch me ride over my brother

on the path there’s a ramp and a much smaller boy
Jason Momoa aged ten disappears
for One Blockbuster Mammoth Power-up

kid brother lies flat against the ramp’s riser
his committed bones are no reflection
on his level at Minecraft or music

they perform for me      it’s like hearing a weirdly
personalised mix list      or meeting Hawaiian nephews
for the first time      in butterfly breath I declare
my pepeha      swear to stand between my boys
and a balaclava bullet in the mall

swinging home, the cherry trees have gone berserk
tui fool about bonkers on the syrup
a picket fence in apricot paint wasn’t there before
and even a kingfisher

Anita Arlov
Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland

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Nana's Garden

We plant the seeds this deep
Nana says, plunging a forefinger into the soil
as a daytime moon waxes lyrical.

Nana's broad flat bare feet splash
plashets on the path, paint broken reflections of
this wise turtle woman.

Her lacquered back bends 'neath the weight
of stored tales, of warriors and tricksters, celestial navigators,
of my mother who disappeared into the mist.

A shattered shell left on a desolate beach.
Yet down on my knees in my grandmother's garden
—that's where I found my feet.

Joy Bell
Wairarapa

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cognitive dissonance

plath’s mirror is broken;
i see a terrible fish rise towards me, yes,
but the reflection isn’t aged—it’s a skeleton, it’s
the outline of my bones
pressing through my flesh.

i disappear so easily, it takes
one misstep & I’ve vanished into the woods again,
far from the only path
& i can’t even allow myself the breadcrumbs to get back.
in this way, i become lost
over & over under sickening canopies.

i spread myself so thin in there
I’m transparent, I’m a crêpe of a person;
some chef’s skilled hand
paints me onto a hot pan—
& i slip past cooked to burning,
becoming unfit for my purposes.

i am impotent within
the mirror; the woods; the kitchen
with horrors so fully under my control
but out of my hands
& my mind, too, again.

Hebe Kearney (they/them)
Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland

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ANSELM 3D
(NZ International Film Festival, 2023)

Anselm Kiefer was born in a bomb
shelter two weeks before the end
of WWII. Immediately, his mother

pressed plugs of softened wax
into her son’s newborn ears
to shield him from the enemy.

Above ground the broken
voices of another
unwinnable war.

At 78, an arc-welding wizard
unmasked against the fierce
toxicity of memory, Anselm

treads a tightrope between
burning straw and molten
lead. Paint pot, brush

or flaming torch in hand,
he cycles the twin hallways
of density and weightlessness.

His studio’s vast, a contained
yet infinite space, itself
a portrait of this man

in whom life’s disjunctions,
even when he does not speak,
are in perpetual conversation.

Trapped in the copper
lining of his eye, the reflection
of a winged palette, feathers

a-tremble; emblem of service,
held up to the sky. A smear
of colour threatens

to disappear down the jagged
path into a forest of birches,
a visitation of stiffened white

ballgowns stock-still and silent
among the trees. Glass shards
arrested in fabric folds

prevent them/prevent
us/prevent Anselm
from taking off across

the unscarred landscape
back to the bomb shelter
in Donaueschingen.

His mother’s lullaby above
the falling bombs a constant
that never leaves him.

Claire Beynon
Ōtepoti Dunedin

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in tempera

the ‘old master’
as they called him,
and called him too
‘more a ha’penny
maestro of the
pewter jug’,
pigment on his
cuffs, had tried
to paint ‘death’
in tempera,
a clear mismatch of
medium to base,
and in his haste
careless flecks of
broken egg-shell
stayed plied
upon the canvas,
cemented along
the brushstrokes
just as they were.
the ‘old master’
had painted ‘death’
much as the times
described him,
on horseback,
a skull set within
hood on sweep
of cloak, one bony
hand on scythe,
the other clutching
back the reins,
a figure in reflection
on a path rounding
like a sundial’s
shadow on the hours
those non-existent
eyes the clotted
dark into which
the age would
disappear,
except that
figure of a
horseman at
our shoulder,
even in
our century
when we had
so much of
death to see,
this essential
form never
bettered,
cut &
dried to
cut &
ride

Peter Le Baige
Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland

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Night Visions

from my window I see spheres      alabaster white
spots of light that dance then disappear
& silhouettes in the underbrush
stealth below perigee moon’s slow rise
over the sharp harbour ridge

these trees I planted once for shelter
are bathed in an aura      painting memory & soul
the palette appropriated by night’s
monochromatic daub

I watch headlights glide down the street
strobe between limbs & leaves towards me
turn      & red taillights recede to distant dots
indecisive blooms in the dark’s pointillism

others streak past      broken beams writing
a litany of lines threading through tree trunks
their thick impasto canopy against sky
reaches for the huge moon moving

in the same direction settlers drove sheep
along a path through dunes around the coast
horseback      before cars & the road by my window
to the lighthouse streaming its code
littered reflections over the sea’s restless language
lunar magnetism drawing our tides

I can hear them coming      a dull rumble
in the deep dusk      sight of bleating clouds
& the sigh of history

Suzanne Herschell
Eastbourne, Lower Hutt

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A Total Lack of Armour

The poetry of
today was nothing short of
absolute engagement

The river of words
never broken, collecting
a panoply of reflections, if a total lack of armour

While many long disappeared
were remembered with tears
none failed to raise some take on a smile

There was dark chocolate
with sea salt
Retro tunes, bitter memories, sweet tea

Robert Plant was the Golden God
Alison Krauss his unlikely fiddler
The Devil sprawled on the couch in the lounge

Open graves
pumped randomly excellent tunes
that never go out of style

Why these things?
Why here?
Why now?

Stone upon stone was laid against the clock
A community of budding stonemasons
The urgently serious chatter of their varied chisels

Cartographers paint
connecting paths to ensure we will always
find a way back to remembering

all the words we know
To collecting every new
one we feel

I saw the fire flowing
in each pen stroke I witnessed
Today.

Bee Trudgeon
Porirua

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when we were young

i used to dream of a return to Granada
of eating oranges for breakfast
letting the cool breeze in
through sheer curtains and cracked
windows offering
the reflection
of mountains and sea

we visited in the new year
during an unfathomably hot winter
the ice was disappearing
from Sierra Nevada
and locals shared their worries
about the changing climate

we followed the path of three kings
sucking candies
tossed for children
through the streets of a tiny village
nestled in the heart
of La Alpujarra

we bathed in the hot waters
of Santa Fé’s thermal spring
off the beaten dirt track
easing aches in communal healing
painting mud lines
down the length of my spine

when we returned to the valley
sunset broke brilliant red
across Mediterranean skies
we sat and sang laughing
around the cackling fire
as my mother’s guitar
spun stories through the night.

Jose Thomas
Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland

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Meet The Neighbours

Two roads diverge in a park.
For all the difference that it makes
I choose the path less trodden
Honestly expecting more
People. More people.

Welcome swallows dart round real quick
Like eager neighbours with muffins
And advice on when to put the bins out—
Not the night before unless you want
Your chardy bottles broken by hooligans.

The knees of the swamp cypress
Peek up along the bank of the stream
Like knobbly meercats. Imagine
Them with googly eyes! These rascals
Should be given their own instagram page.

Who says this neighbourhood is quiet?
Counting their reflections
Two posh swans with fluffy progeny
Make eight. A duck might introduce you
To an entire Anatidae community.

The trees have been here longest.
Wild, like you wouldn't believe!
Someone ought to paint them
Their zany twigs and miscreant leaves
Before they disappear. Now
There's a project for you.

Gillian Roach
Napier

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David

My grandfather does not speak of it;
he impiously pours pearl paint
over the Star of David he was born with.
The edges are broken now,
scarred over pink from
young-boy-dog-filth-christ-infection.
You can still see the intersecting triangular path
if you look very closely.
I don’t think my mother has one and
I’m too scared to ask:
Did it disappear on its own?
Did you burn it off in your 20s?
Did the mark of the beak
sink back into your flesh
when Grandad told you about Latvia?
Do I have one?

Is my Anglified reflection a result of the Reich?
Is this pearl paint splotch on my palm
the mark of a beak or a birthmark?
I polish it anyhow—
I will not carve it clean
like my mother.

Matilda Hinton
Ōtautahi Christchurch

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Porcelain Ballerina

Emerald-green sea of stiffened tulle
swirling just below bended knee

sand-encrusted crescendo of waves cresting
foaming, moving gently toward the shoreline

twirling en pointe, porcelain ballerina dances passionately
upon the high-tide mark

her reflection momentarily suspended in time
upon the surface of an over-populated rockpool

long-lashed sea anenome close their eyes, and limpet mines cling
as Neptune lashes necklaced baubles over broken edges
of mother-of-pearl

we sit quietly among the sizzling banks of kikuyu
watching the sun paint orange across in the west, and day disappear

afterwards, we run along the well-worn path toward home in the darkening dusk

You carry our sandcastle’d buckets and spades.
I, my backpack; our ballerina doll tucked safely inside.

June Pitman-Hayes
Whangārei

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Dusk has the flavour

Today dusk has the flavour
of greasy grey mud
The calm is unsettling
on the harbour channel
where moored yachts align
with the outgoing tide
A kōtuku ngutupapa
feeds undisturbed
by sifting the shallows
in wide arcs

But for the path of a fishing boat
disappearing into the distance
there are no ripples
The broken piece of pottery I toss
fails to skip, instead
plops messily
leaving a sticky reflection
of clouds painted
in silvery cinereal shades

Piet Nieuwland
Whangarei

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Narcissus

Counted among the gods
his path disappeared at water's edge,
broken reflections ripple like old paint

David Griffin
Geraldine

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Lone child

All you have is your reflection
batting a ball against paint on the wall.
Your open palm makes up the game
to touch colours or lines—
points for no windows broken.
Your rhythm nestles
into the edge
of now and the future.

It is a path of all play today.

I
watch
our
day
disappear
with
each
bounce.

Katrina Ward
New Plymouth

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Hellscapes for the young

Suspended in darkness,
Before the wide screen gaming console,
He stares into encoded depth.
At his shoulder I stand and watch.
Into hellscapes for the young
We plunge.
Catacombs of perdition.
From their holes, bumbling demons
Scream from flayed mouths,
Jiving on broken paths of fire
To a squelching bump’n’grind soundtrack.
I look harder
Into malign reflection.
Over the border, smartphones livestreaming all.
Mud boiling through cities painted by pestilence.
Homes disappear, swallowed whole by the inferno.
On the flat lands, metal barbs flower on soft limbs.
Just beyond the curve of tomorrow,
You can hear them coming along—
Demons jogging over the bridge, making good time.
Keeping to schedule, on track!
On their way to the promised land, promised land.

Victor Billot
Ōtepoti Dunedin

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rainbow like the trout

tension tight
rod tip shakes
water splashes

snap
the line breaks

silence

look down
the reflection of loss
disappointment in the air

his biggest fish
disappears
back to the deeps

look up
the sky is painted
rainbow like the trout

back up the path
to drift back down again
like the rainbow trout

Tom Butterfield
Ōtautahi Christchurch

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The Itch

The journey back is the path I have not taken
            though I crave it

as if it were the one to cast an anchor
            to draw me in
as if it were the one to shift
            in ocean’s swell.

My struggle,
as one who had been grounded
            is sweet delay
growing, for I know what is to come.

Yet—it is in my upward glance
            that I see myself
painted on the underside of waves
            a reflection, offering truth.

I am afraid.

Am I more than what I was
            before being laid upon the ocean floor?
Is there enough of me to say
            that I have grown?

Or worse, am I beyond past’s reach
            a stranger with strange ways
an interloper
            who knows nothing of the sun?

So, I sit, spying through the broken light
            dining on moments I carried with me
rolling them over my tongue
            seeking flavour that has long since disappeared.

            Instead, is it the anchor I’m left to savour
and the itch that grows that I know I cannot scratch.

Craig McGeady
Ōtepoti Dunedin

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Something About the Light
There is another world and it is in this one.
—Paul Éluard

There is something about the light this winter.
It forges a tenuous substance to sustain us
somewhere between the living
                                                  and the dying,

somewhere between the haunted ring of broken bells,
the patina of weathered paint, the paucity of guides––
navigation without maps, a mystifying presence,
like one of those treated windows, a reflection
                                                  rather than a revelation.

Every evening, I track the moon. As each imperfect
sphere approaches and passes its fullness,
I walk to the beach, follow the path
of moonlight on water to the other world
                                                  before I disappear.

Philomena Johnson
Ōtautahi Christchurch

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